Chapter 40
XL.
DANTE
The sound of the entrance opening made his shadows recoil.
No one knew about this place. No one had ever—
She stepped into his sanctuary, vibrating with rage.
But underneath it—hurt. The brittle edge of someone who'd trusted him and now wondered if that trust had been misplaced.
The thief had found his refuge. And she'd come armed with questions.
He stood from the bench as she approached, his mask slamming into place even though every instinct screamed that it was already too late. She'd seen too much. Knew too much.
"She said I wasn't the first mortal to catch your attention."
The words came out sharp, her voice tight with emotion she was barely controlling. Her hands were clenched at her sides, knuckles white, and even in her fury, she was beautiful in a way that made his shadows ache toward her.
He forced them still.
"She told me to ask you about the tribute you became attached to. About what happened when she started asking the wrong questions."
Elizabeth.
The name dragged up memories he'd buried so deep he'd almost convinced himself they'd stopped hurting. Seraphina had found that weakness and wielded it perfectly.
And now Brynn stood before him with devastation written in the rigid line of her shoulders, the too-bright shine in her eyes, the way she held herself like she was bracing for another blow.
She thinks she's just another in a pattern.
"You don't want to know." His voice came out rough, a warning she wouldn't heed. Had never heeded, from the first moment she'd looked him in the eye and refused to flinch.
"Yes, I do." She stopped just outside the circle of the fountain's light. "I need to know."
She wasn't just angry. She was hurt in ways that had nothing to do with political games, and that cracked him open.
She'd let herself feel something. And now she was standing in his garden, wondering if any of it had been real.
"Seraphina has her own agenda," he said. "Whatever she told you—"
"Don't." The word cracked like a whip. "Don't you dare try to deflect this. I'm not some naive child you can distract with warnings about political games."
His shadows writhed at the anger in her voice. They wanted to wrap around her, soothe the rage radiating from her skin. He held them back through sheer will.
"Tell me about her." Brynn stepped closer to the fountain's edge, into the light that made her eyes flash. "Tell me about the woman who was here before me."
The woman who was here before me.
The guilt nearly drove him to his knees. Because she did matter. She mattered in ways Elizabeth never had. Ways he hadn't let himself look at too closely because that would mean admitting how far gone he already was.
"Her name was Elizabeth." The words scraped out of him.
He watched her expression shift. Her anger flickered, surprise that he was actually answering. Then it blazed higher.
"What happened to her, Dante?"
The use of his name instead of his title undid him. She was demanding answers from him as a person. Not the Reaper. She wanted truth from Dante.
He turned away, moving to the fountain's edge because he couldn't face her while saying this.
His hands gripped the stone hard enough that cracks spider-webbed beneath his fingers.
"She was curious. About everything. The court, the realm, how things worked here. She asked endless questions." He forced himself to breathe through the tightness behind his ribs. "And I was lonely."
The admission tore open a wound that had never properly healed. Lifetimes of isolation, of keeping everyone at arm's length. Lifetimes of being the thing that made even other Death Lords uneasy.
"When someone finally treated this place like a fascinating new world instead of a nightmare, when someone asked questions out of curiosity rather than terror..."
His voice broke slightly.
"I made the mistake of thinking I could have that."
He could feel her moving closer behind him. Her scent reaching him now, warm citrus cutting through the jasmine and night-blooming flowers.
Too close. And he could never make himself tell her to stop.
"She didn't quite grasp how dangerous it all was," he continued, staring at the aurora overhead. "Like she didn't understand that the biggest danger was standing right beside her."
"What happened?" Brynn's voice came from directly behind his left shoulder now. Close enough that his shadows strained toward her with longing he couldn't suppress.
His hands clenched harder on the stone.
"I let my guard down. Started spending time with her, showing her parts of the court that were meant to stay hidden. I told myself it was harmless. She was just curious, and I was just..."
Lonely. So lonely, he'd let himself believe he could have something that was never meant for him.
"She tried to touch you," Brynn said quietly instead.
"We were talking in the library one evening. She was excited about something she'd discovered in one of the texts. Animated and happy."
He made himself say the rest.
"She reached out without thinking. Grabbed my hand to pull me over to show me what she'd found."
The garden seemed to hold its breath.
"I wasn't prepared. For lifetimes, I'd maintained constant vigilance around innocents. But in that moment of happiness, of connection..."
He turned back to face her.
"My power drained her life before I could stop it. She collapsed in my arms, and I watched the light leave her eyes. She was gone in seconds. Just gone."
Silence stretched between them.
Brynn's expression had shifted. The anger was still there, in the tension around her eyes, the set of her jaw. But compassion had joined it.
He didn't deserve it.
"That's why you won't let anyone close," she said softly. "Not because you don't know what you're capable of. Because you found out what happens when you forget, even for a second."
Yes.
"And you've spent your whole existence punishing yourself for it."
"It wasn't letting my guard down." The words came out sharp, desperate for her to understand. "It wasn't a simple mistake. I'm not human. I never was."
His shadows darkened around them.
"I'm the Reaper. I harvest life with my touch. That's not a curse or a transformation. That's what I was born to be."
"And what has all that isolation done to you?" Her voice was quiet but intense, cutting through his defenses. "What has believing you're nothing but a monster done to the being underneath?"
The question hit a wound he'd buried so deep he'd thought it could never surface.
"I don't matter. Only their safety matters. Only making sure I never forget again what I'm capable of."
"You're wrong."
She stepped closer. Close enough that he could count the brown flecks in her eyes. Close enough that her scent wrapped around him and her body heat reached him through the cool garden air.
"Elizabeth's death was a tragedy. But it wasn't murder, Dante. It was an accident."
"An accident that killed someone who trusted me." The words came out stripped of everything but raw truth.
"An accident that taught you to be even more careful." She moved forward again, and his heart stopped. "You think I don't see how you calculate every gesture, every moment of proximity? You've spent lifetimes learning that vigilance."
"That's what I am." The desperation bled through. "Death waiting for someone to make a mistake."
"Your nature is choosing restraint every single day. Your nature is carrying guilt to protect people you barely know."
"Don't." Rough, raw. "Don't make me into something I'm not."
"I'm not making you into anything."
Her hand moved slowly, telegraphing her intent, giving him time to pull away. To maintain the distance that kept her safe.
He couldn't move.
"I'm seeing what you really are. What you've always been underneath the guilt and fear."
Her fingers hovered inches from his face, and every instinct screamed at him. Half to retreat. Half to close the distance himself and damn the consequences.
His shadows slipped their leash. One tendril curled toward her wrist before he caught it and yanked it back with a shudder.
Her pulse beat visibly in her throat. Steady. The rhythm of someone who'd made a decision.
"How can you be so certain?" The question came out desperate. "How can you trust that when I can't even trust myself?"
"Because I've watched you choose safety over everything else, every single day."
Her hand was so close he could feel the heat of her skin.
Her eyes locked with his. The anger was still there, banked now rather than blazing, but beneath it he saw trust that made his ribs ache.
Trust. Despite everything Seraphina had said. Despite every reason she had to doubt him.
"You're not going to hurt me, Dante." Her voice was soft but certain. "You won't let yourself."